Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is out for around a week now, and the reception so far is extremely positive, both from fans and critics. Considering how the Call of Duty community wasn’t sure about earlier instalments, this is a breath of fresh air for most people.

Treyarch Co-Studio Head Dan Bunting was recently featured in an interview with GamesBeat, thanking the development team for their efforts and expressed how meaningful Black Ops 4 is to the franchise. He described it as a celebration of “the legacy of Black Ops, the history of Black Ops” and what it represents, both the instalment itself and its battle royale mode specifically, Blackout.

I think that what we built is a game that really celebrates the legacy of Black Ops, the history of Black Ops. We wanted to surprise and delight our fans. We always like to do that. We put Easter eggs in the map. We put favorite maps that players have played in different games together in one place. You look at the Estate section of Blackout, where it has Raid on one side and Stronghold on the other. It’s two different maps from two different worlds coming together in unison.

It’s been fun for us to do that, to give players a new twist on old favorites. You go to Nuketown Island, it’s almost not even about Nuketown itself. It’s about all the tunnels underneath that you never got to see in the actual Nuketown map. We’ve had fun playing with the fiction. You just have to constantly deliver exciting and fun and rewarding experiences for your fans.

I think we’ve carved out our own space. We have something that feels very natural to Call of Duty and celebrates Black Ops. Players who’ve been with us for the series — we really wanted this game to be in service to our fans, in service to our community. It’s not just how we update or provide transparency to the fans, how we communicate to the fans. It’s not just about how we update the game post-launch. Those are all important to the community. But it’s also how we look back to the history. The players who’ve been with us all this time, we’re giving them something that feels like they can latch on to it. It’s a celebration of what they’ve loved all these years. That’s what Blackout is.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is now live on PS4, Xbox One and PC, and it is doing extremely well.